Six years ago we gathered in this Square to celebrate
the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Our grief at his loss was deep, but even greater was our
sense of an immense grace which embraced Rome and the whole world: a grace which
was in some way the fruit of my beloved predecessor’s entire life, and
especially of his witness in suffering. Even then we perceived the fragrance of
his sanctity, and in any number of ways God’s People showed their veneration for
him. For this reason, with all due respect for the Church’s canonical norms, I
wanted his cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste. And
now the longed-for day has come; it came quickly because this is what was
pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed!

I would like to offer a cordial greeting to all of you who on this happy
occasion have come in such great numbers to Rome from all over the world –
cardinals, patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches, brother bishops and
priests, official delegations, ambassadors and civil authorities, consecrated
men and women and lay faithful, and I extend that greeting to all those who join
us by radio and television.

Today is
the Second Sunday of Easter, which Blessed John Paul II entitled Divine Mercy Sunday. The date was chosen for today’s celebration because, in God’s
providence, my predecessor died on the vigil of this feast. Today is also the
first day of May, Mary’s month, and the liturgical memorial of Saint Joseph the
Worker. All these elements serve to enrich our prayer, they help us in our
pilgrimage through time and space; but in heaven a very different celebration is
taking place among the angels and saints! Even so, God is but one, and one too
is Christ the Lord, who like a bridge joins earth to heaven. At this moment we
feel closer than ever, sharing as it were in the liturgy of heaven.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn
20:29). In today’s Gospel Jesus proclaims this beatitude: the beatitude of
faith. For us, it is particularly striking because we are gathered to celebrate
a beatification, but even more so because today the one proclaimed blessed is a
Pope, a Successor of Peter, one who was called to confirm his brethren in the
faith. John Paul II is blessed because of his faith, a strong, generous and
apostolic faith. We think at once of another beatitude: “Blessed are you,
Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my
Father in heaven” (Mt 16:17). What did our heavenly Father reveal to
Simon? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Because of this
faith, Simon becomes Peter, the rock on which Jesus can build his Church. The
eternal beatitude of John Paul II, which today the Church rejoices to proclaim,
is wholly contained in these sayings of Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon” and
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe!” It is the
beatitude of faith, which John Paul II also received as a gift from God the
Father for the building up of Christ’s Church.

Our thoughts turn to yet another beatitude, one which appears in the Gospel
before all others. It is the beatitude of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the
Redeemer. Mary, who had just conceived Jesus, was told by Saint Elizabeth:
“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken
to her by the Lord” (Lk 1:45). The beatitude of faith has its model in
Mary, and all of us rejoice that the beatification of John Paul II takes place
on this first day of the month of Mary, beneath the maternal gaze of the one who
by her faith sustained the faith of the Apostles and constantly sustains the
faith of their successors, especially those called to occupy the Chair of Peter.
Mary does not appear in the accounts of Christ’s resurrection, yet hers is, as
it were, a continual, hidden presence: she is the Mother to whom Jesus entrusted
each of his disciples and the entire community. In particular we can see how
Saint John and Saint Luke record the powerful, maternal presence of Mary in the
passages preceding those read in today’s Gospel and first reading. In the
account of Jesus’ death, Mary appears at the foot of the cross (Jn
19:25), and at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles she is seen in the
midst of the disciples gathered in prayer in the Upper Room (Acts 1:14).

Today’s second reading also speaks to us of faith. Saint Peter himself, filled
with spiritual enthusiasm, points out to the newly-baptized the reason for their
hope and their joy. I like to think how in this passage, at the beginning of
his First Letter, Peter does not use language of exhortation; instead, he states
a fact. He writes: “you rejoice”, and he adds: “you love him; and
even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice
with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome
of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:6, 8-9). All these
verbs are in the indicative, because a new reality has come about in Christ’s
resurrection, a reality to which faith opens the door. “This is the Lord’s
doing”, says the Psalm (118:23), and “it is marvelous in our eyes”, the eyes of
faith.

Dear brothers and sisters, today our eyes behold, in the full spiritual light of
the risen Christ, the beloved and revered figure of John Paul II. Today his
name is added to the host of those whom he proclaimed saints and blesseds during
the almost twenty-seven years of his pontificate, thereby forcefully emphasizing
the universal vocation to the heights of the Christian life, to holiness, taught
by the conciliar Constitution on the Church
Lumen Gentium. All of us, as
members of the people of God – bishops, priests, deacons, laity, men and women
religious – are making our pilgrim way to the heavenly homeland where the Virgin
Mary has preceded us, associated as she was in a unique and perfect way to the
mystery of Christ and the Church. Karol Wojtyła took part in the
Second Vatican
Council, first as an auxiliary Bishop and then as Archbishop of Kraków. He was
fully aware that the Council’s decision to devote the last chapter of its
Constitution on the Church to Mary meant that the Mother of the Redeemer is held
up as an image and model of holiness for every Christian and for the entire
Church. This was the theological vision which Blessed John Paul II discovered
as a young man and subsequently maintained and deepened throughout his life. A
vision which is expressed in the scriptural image of the crucified Christ with
Mary, his Mother, at his side. This icon from the Gospel of John (19:25-27) was
taken up in the episcopal and later the papal coat-of-arms of Karol Wojtyła: a
golden cross with the letter “M” on the lower right and the motto “Totus tuus”,
drawn from the well-known words of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in
which Karol Wojtyła found a guiding light for his life: “Totus tuus ego sum
et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria – I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my
all. O Mary, give me your heart” (Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed
Virgin, 266).

In
his Testament,
the new Blessed wrote: “When, on 16 October 1978, the Conclave
of Cardinals chose John Paul II, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan
Wyszyński, said to me: ‘The task of the new Pope will be to lead the
Church into
the Third Millennium’”. And the Pope added: “I would like once again to
express
my gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of the Second Vatican
Council, to which, together with the whole Church – and especially with
the
whole episcopate – I feel indebted. I am convinced that it will long be
granted
to the new generations to draw from the treasures that this Council of
the
twentieth century has lavished upon us. As a Bishop who took part in the
Council from the first to the last day, I desire to entrust this great
patrimony
to all who are and will be called in the future to put it into practice.
For my
part, I thank the Eternal Shepherd, who has enabled me to serve this
very great
cause in the course of all the years of my Pontificate”. And what is
this
“cause”? It is the same one that John Paul II presented
during his first solemn
Mass in Saint Peter’s Square in the unforgettable words: “Do not be afraid!
Open, open wide the doors to Christ!” What the newly-elected Pope asked of
everyone, he was himself the first to do: society, culture, political and
economic systems he opened up to Christ, turning back with the strength of a
titan – a strength which came to him from God – a tide which appeared
irreversible. By his witness of faith, love and apostolic courage, accompanied
by great human charisma, this exemplary son of Poland helped believers
throughout the world not to be afraid to be called Christian, to belong to the
Church, to speak of the Gospel. In a word: he helped us not to fear the truth,
because truth is the guarantee of liberty. To put it even more succinctly: he
gave us the strength to believe in Christ, because Christ is Redemptor
hominis, the Redeemer of man. This was the theme of
his first encyclical,
and the thread which runs though
all the others.

When Karol Wojtyła ascended to the throne of Peter, he brought with him a deep
understanding of the difference between Marxism and Christianity, based on their
respective visions of man. This was his message: man is the way of the Church,
and Christ is the way of man. With this message, which is the great legacy of
the Second Vatican Council and of its “helmsman”, the Servant of God Pope
Paul
VI, John Paul II led the People of God across the threshold of the Third
Millennium, which thanks to Christ he was able to call “the threshold of hope”.
Throughout the long journey of preparation for the great Jubilee he directed
Christianity once again to the future, the future of God, which transcends
history while nonetheless directly affecting it. He rightly reclaimed for
Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before
Marxism and the ideology of progress. He restored to Christianity its true face
as a religion of hope, to be lived in history in an “Advent” spirit, in a
personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ, the fullness of
humanity and the fulfillment of all our longings for justice and peace.

Finally, on a more personal note, I would like to thank God for the gift of
having worked for many years with Blessed Pope John Paul II. I had known him
earlier and had esteemed him, but for twenty-three years, beginning in 1982
after he called me to Rome to be Prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, I was at his side and came to revere him all the more. My own
service was sustained by his spiritual depth and by the richness of his
insights. His example of prayer continually impressed and edified me: he
remained deeply united to God even amid the many demands of his ministry. Then
too, there was his witness in suffering: the Lord gradually stripped him of
everything, yet he remained ever a “rock”, as Christ desired. His profound
humility, grounded in close union with Christ, enabled him to continue to lead
the Church and to give to the world a message which became all the more eloquent
as his physical strength declined. In this way he lived out in an extraordinary
way the vocation of every priest and bishop to become completely one with Jesus,
whom he daily receives and offers in the Church.

Blessed are you, beloved
Pope John Paul II, because you believed! Continue, we
implore you, to sustain from heaven the faith of God’s people. You often
blessed us in this Square from the Apostolic Palace: Bless us, Holy Father!
Amen.

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Bali is My Life

The people of Bali invite you to experience the pleasure of their island...

When you ask anyone who has visited Bali, "What's the best thing about Bali?" Their response is usually the same - "the people". Whether it's a 30 second chat with the waiter at breakfast or a 3 hour surf lesson discovering the hip phrases of surfing language, their warmth, charm and friendliness shine through leaving you feeling refreshed and wanting more.

And more is their waiting for you, with a wealth of interesting characters eager to show you; colourful temple ceremonies, endless beaches at sunset, dramatic misty volcanoes, terraced rice fields under the dappled light of coconut trees, candle lit fine dining, charming villages, pulsating nightlife and pounding surf - just for starters. We want you to see the beautiful rice fields, the Barong dance by torch light, pounding surf below temples perched on the cliff top, the arts and crafts in the markets and so much more.

So when you think about your next holiday, think about making friends with the people of Bali.

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